Flagship Studios Closing

When Hellgate: London was released last year it received mixed reviews and I think everyone will agree that the game was far from complete. Despite numerous patches and the promise that the game would be fixed up it’s not come quick enough.

Yesterday rumours of Flagship Studios closing were abound and Flagship Studios had in fact lost the IP to their two main titles Hellgate and the free to play RPG Mythos. This morning it’s been confirmed that Flagship Studios has closed down and staff were sent home today.

HanbitSoft had been keeping Flagship Studios going but time had run out and HanbitSoft were seeing their cash investments being put into other projects at Flagship Studios. The plug has now effectively been pulled after Flagship refused a further loan package from HanbitSoft.

HanbitSoft are expected to keep the Hellgate project afloat for the Korean market but the future of the global service is uncertain, although subscription links have now vanished from the official Hellgate site. So what of Mythos? HanbitSoft will apparently be looking at ways to complete the game for the Asian market but no comment has been made regarding other regions.

Our network site diii.net received confirmation from an inside source this morning that Flagship has closed its doors once and for all and that staff had been made redundant with a 30 day pay package provided by the company founders.

Always a sad day to see a developer go under but the warning signs were there toward the end of last year following the Hellgate release. No doubt we’ll hear more about the closure in the coming days and we’ll keep you posted.